| Summary: | This research examines religious beliefs as a new antecedent to brand love, and proposes a new construct, that of Islamic brand love. Brand love as a construct has been linked with different constructs such as brand loyalty, brand trust, brand likeability, brand commitment and word-of-mouth (Albert and Merunka, 2013; Batra et al., 2012; Cengiz and Yayla, 2007; Nguyen et al., 2013). In addition, brand love can be influenced by other psychological factors such as cultural identity, religiosity or strongly held values (Batra et al., 2012). Therefore, it is suggested that religious beliefs as a cultural component can be one of the antecedents of brand love. To address the research objectives, a conceptual model was developed with 19 hypotheses to assess Islamic brand love as a focal construct, considering its antecedents (religious beliefs, subjective norms and perceived behavioural control) and consequences (word-of-mouth, brand loyalty and purchase intention). This study employed mixed-method research following a positivist research philosophy (Malhotra and Birks, 2003). From the positivist perspective, qualitative methods can be applied in the initial stages of research in order to gain a deeper understanding of the nature of the research problem and also to improve the primary research model and hypotheses (Malhotra and Birks, 2003). Since this study proposes a new construct, Churchill's (1979) paradigm is adopted to develop a new scale that measures Islamic brand love and its related constructs. The data collection process was conducted in two stages. The first stage included an assessment of the conceptual model on the basis of the qualitative study (semi-structured interviews and focus groups), while the second stage included a quantitative assessment of the model. The quantitative assessment included 539 self-administered questionnaires, which were collected to examine Muslim consumers' perceptions of Islamic brand love in Saudi Arabia. In order to make sure that the data collected was valid and reliable, exploratory factor analysis (EFA) and confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) were employed. All the research hypotheses were tested using structural equation modelling (SEM). The model indicated an acceptable fit with the data and a good level of validity (discriminant, nomological and convergent). The outcomes of the empirical tests indicated that religious beliefs are a key factor of the Islamic brand love construct, as the proposed correlation between the two constructs was confirmed by both the qualitative findings and the empirical results. Additionally, the results of the hypothesis testing revealed that religious beliefs have a direct effect on brand loyalty and purchase intention. However, the findings showed unexpected results regarding the proposed correlation between religious beliefs and word-of-mouth, as this was not significant. The empirical results indicate that the subjective norms construct is a key determinant of Islamic brand love, word-of-mouth, brand loyalty and purchase intention, and all the proposed correlations were significant. Perceived behavioural control had a positive effect on Islamic brand love. However, the outcomes included some surprising results, as perceived behavioural control showed no relationship to three constructs (word-of-mouth, brand loyalty and purchase intention). The empirical results indicated that subjective norms were a key determinant of Islamic brand love, word-of-mouth, brand loyalty and purchase intention, and all the proposed correlations were significant. Similarly, Islamic brand love as a focal construct was considered as a key factor of its consequences (word-of-mouth, brand loyalty and purchase intention). Finally, the proposed correlation between word-of-mouth and brand loyalty, and between brand loyalty and purchase intention, were not significant. This study contributes to the existing literature by offering a new construct, Islamic brand love. This construct was developed by investigating the correlation between religious beliefs and brand love within the Islamic context. The outcomes show that Islamic brand love includes three factors: religious beliefs, subjective norms and perceived behavioural control. The findings demonstrate that Islamic brand love is an important concept for managers who want to have their brands loved by Muslim consumers. Finally, this study recommends that future research should validate the scales used, and examine the proposed correlations in different contexts.
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